Author
Topic: Fallout New Vegas

I think any games with bugs should be avoided. Let the developers and publishers suffer lost profits and maybe eventually they'll get it right.

What kind of bugs? I'll deal with some performance quirks for a more interesting game, and some of them are too damn hilarious to use as a reason to not buy a game. I can understand frequent, game breaking/ruining bugs, but that's it; some of the most interesting games are kind of buggy, especially in regards to Bioware and Bethesda.

Also: Pretty much all software has bugs to some degree, so the further you take it the more unreasonable it is.

If you look at the F3 wiki (or TES wiki, for that matter) there are certain quests that have more space devoted to bugs possible during the quest than there is actual information on the quest (considering the quest is easy and is only a few events long). That's ridiculous and I'd even argue unacceptable for the price they charge for these games. You'd think they have gotten it right back in Morrowind!

Even worse is that Bethesda is really bad at getting rid of the bugs. When they patch it, more bugs are introduced. For example, in Oblivion GotY PS3 version there is one major quest that you can't finish at all because of the SI patch that comes automatically installed.

It doesn't stop me from playing the game of course. Not to mention that fan patches are usually better than anything officially released simply because they stop updating their games and fans don't.

Most Western RPGs could be described as buggy to some degree, with a few exceptions. It's an inevitable consequence of having of lots of different options and sidequests everywhere, as opposed to a primarily linear path. Nearly every highly acclaimed computer RPG of the last 10-15 years or so has had unofficial patches, but even so I've only ran into game-breaking bugs in two games, the rest were perfectly playable.

Well, I just lost an hour of progress because the autosave function wasn't working (even though it said everything saved and I can see the fucking file in the document folder). The PC version is a buggy mess. The framerate can't hold steady to save it's life, and I was running Fallout 3 with the same settings at damn near 60 fps. This is all sorts of messed up. Not even sure if I can play it in this state.

Oblivion has that problem as well. I won't even play Oblivion without Streamline and Operation Optimization. With all of its performance problems I'm amazed Oblivion got the reviews it did. I love the game, but vanilla was practically unplayable for me. Wait a week or two and some performance mods should come out for New Vegas.

I've been playing on PS3 for an hour or so, too, and it feels just like F3. I haven't played F3 on a console for years so it feels a bit off, but it's not necessarily bad. I haven't had any problems with FPS drops, but 'm sure that will change once I get into more populated areas.

I did happen to run into 3 Giant Radscorpions who ate me alive, though.

Yeah, the game is really forcing me down one path. It threw giant radscorpians at me right away when I went off the beaten path. Guess they want to funnel me down for the first few hours, but it's proving rather obnoxious at this point.

Also, the autosaving problem seems to be related to steamcloud. Great job, guys! Talk about how awesome stemcloud and Fallout are going to be together and then release the game without checking to make sure the damn thing works. This game stinks of being shoved out the door WAY too early. Between that, repeating dialogue, enemies trapped in walls, and shit that doesn't even make sense (killing convicts on one game gave me good karma, and before it was giving me nothing) this is proving to be quite the disappointing experience for me so far.

I think any games with bugs should be avoided. Let the developers and publishers suffer lost profits and maybe eventually they'll get it right.

What kind of bugs? I'll deal with some performance quirks for a more interesting game, and some of them are too damn hilarious to use as a reason to not buy a game. I can understand frequent, game breaking/ruining bugs, but that's it; some of the most interesting games are kind of buggy, especially in regards to Bioware and Bethesda.

Also: Pretty much all software has bugs to some degree, so the further you take it the more unreasonable it is.

When reviews are saying:

"The game--a retail disc running on a new-model Xbox 360--crashed on me about a dozen times over the 33 hours I spent playing, often taking a significant amount of progress with it. The load times and frame rate seemed to get randomly worse as I continued to play the game, with some simple scene transitions taking 20 seconds or more. The technical hurdles you'll have to make to stay interested in New Vegas are meaner and more frustrating than any Deathclaw or Nightkin you'll face in the game. If you're the type of person who likes to watch for a patch or two before settling into a game, know this now: you probably don't want to play Fallout: New Vegas right away."-Giant Bomb

And:

"How could I tell you whether or not it's an insult that you're being asked to pay $60 for a game that's so technically deficient that it scarcely feels past the beta stage? Iit's shocking that it's being released to the public in this state." - Joystiq

"I should also be clear â€“ there are lots of pieces of Fallout: New Vegas that are broken." - RPGFan

Bugs due to hardware conflicts (not an excuse with consoles) are understandable. Scripting bugs can be forgiven, especially due to the size of most games, but on the other hand if the game is so complex it can't be written effectively, then maybe you shouldn't do it.

What bothers me most are stupid gameplay bugs, like broken skills/formulas etc. Those are easily diagnosed by basic math...

I played the PS3 version of F3, and that thing was a complete train wreck. Having the game freeze when a PSN update popped up was inexcusable, as was the constant freezing. But this issue with Steam where the damn autosave function doesn't work is borderline nuts. I would seriously consider getting a refund if I could right now. To release a game in this state is a giant slap in the face to consumers. Meanwhile, Blizzard releases StarCraft 2 and it is polished to a mirror shine. Granted the two products are very different, but imagine if Fallout had the same level of polish. A perfect example is the difference between GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption. GTA4 was fairly bug free at launch, while RDR was (and still is) littered with problems. Two similar games, but a serious lack of polish on one.

Admittedly what I was replying to was more the idea of avoiding games with bugs, and he clarified that position (though I disagree on ambition, they should definitely give it a shot so long as it won't turn out a complete mess) anyway. That, and I DID say that was another good, stronger reason to wait beyond the DLC fiasco.

PaleRobbie: I suggest disabling Steam Cloud in the Steam settings menu if you haven't done so already. Also, if you're using an Nvidia card set water multisampling to low, apparently that fixes most of the performance problems with recent drivers (at least it did in Fallout 3, I don't what to suggest if you have an ATI card).